Creatures, Technology, and Scientific Psychology

Abstract

The chapter follows the various stages in the development of the paradigm of production in the modern age, with a particular attention to how, first with Kant and then—and especially—with Fichte, it came to establish itself as the foundation of the natural-scientific psychology and the life sciences up to present-day cognitive neurosciences. Helmholtz grafted Fichte’s philosophy onto the very heart of physiology, producing two remarkable consequences: (a) he disclosed a new method of investigation that via Magnus, DeBarenne, and McCulloch ushered in a new—and still contemporary—era in the mathematical modeling of natural phenomena; (b) he laid the physiological foundations for the development of technologies in the image and likeness of man.

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